Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy voices his displeasure on a unnecessary roughness penalty with line judge Tom Symonette during the second quarter against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., Sunday, October 28, 2012. (Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MCT)

GREEN BAY, Wis. — When the Green Bay Packers suffered an embarrassing loss to the New York Giants in which they looked overmatched and outplayed, it could have demoralized an team with too many starters and stars on the sidelines in casts and on crutches.

Three days later, almost everyone expected a verbal lambasting from coach Mike McCarthy.

“But he gave this speech,” said nose tackle B.J. Raji, “and it just threw me.”

McCarthy quoted Corinthians from the Bible: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

“The room was in complete silence,” said Raji. “It was not a long speech. I was surprised. And shocked. And kind of impressed. Losing a four-touchdown game on prime time, that’s cause for a fire-and-brimstone type of speech. It just shows how much he understands the players he’s coaching. I think the message got across.”

The message was to learn from the loss and convert it into something useful and therefore something meaningful.

You’ll never hear McCarthy say he’s out to prove the doubters wrong. You’ll never hear him vent his defenses to critics. One of his survival tactics is that he doesn’t waste his energy on anything he perceives as negative.

“I feel the ability to grow the positive is the best way to accomplish things,” McCarthy said last week in a one-on-one interview.

“I mean, we’ve all been kicked in the butt and have fallen down. I think: Jump back up.

“I never really cared what people thought of me. The negative questions and the agendas, its part of our business. And I look at it as business. I try not to take it personal. I try to leave my competitive nature for the playing field — because that’s really where it belongs.”

And this is where McCarthy seems to belong, in Green Bay. McCarthy has been such a consistent presence it’s easy to forget he came in on a tidal wave of change.

In 2006, 10 of the NFL’s 32 teams changed coaches.

Three new hires were made in the NFC North Division alone: Brad Childress in Minnesota, Rod Marinelli in Detroit and McCarthy.

Elsewhere, Eric Mangini took over the Jets, Dick Jauron the Bills, Gary Kubiak the Texans, Art Shell the Raiders, Herman Edwards the Chiefs, Sean Payton the Saints and Scott Linehan the Rams.

Seven years later, some of those teams are on their second, third or even fourth coaches.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is preparing the Packers (9-4) to play Chicago on Sunday in pursuit of their third division title under his leadership (following 2007 and 2011) and a fifth playoff appearance (after ’07, ’09, ’10, ’11).

McCarthy has won a Super Bowl, coached an MVP in Aaron Rodgers and assembled a 15-1 season. He is tied with Mike Holmgren as the fourth-longest tenured coach in the franchise’s 92-year history, behind Curly Lambeau (29 years) and Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr (nine each).

With seven years in Green Bay, McCarthy trails only Philadelphia’s Andy Reid (hired in 1999), New England’s Bill Belichick (2000), Cincinnati’s Marvin Lewis (2003) and New York Giants’ Tom Coughlin and Chicago’s Lovie Smith (2004) in length of service to his team.

“It feels like I just got here,” McCarthy said.

Veterans on this team simply call him Mike. The up-and-coming Packers view McCarthy — unanimously, it seems — as a leader who inspires and pushes them.

“Coach McCarthy preaches that even if you feel like you played your best game, your best football is yet to come,” said rookie defensive lineman Jerel Worthy. “(Quarterback Aaron Rodgers) has a lot of good games around here, but (McCarthy) still doesn’t let A-Rod get complacent. He lets him know that he still has a lot of work to do. I’ve always had coaches that preached to be the best, but he demands to be the best.”

“It’s his intensity,” said rookie defensive lineman Mike Daniels. “I’ve been around losing before and I’ve been around winning, and he’s definitely a winner.”

Players said McCarthy’s other strengths are his nervy play-calling, his personable nature and his ability to criticize himself (he could have called a better game at Detroit, he said). McCarthy is reasonable, they say; he has rules but understands extenuating circumstances pop up among 53 employees.

But by and large, many players said McCarthy’s steadfast nature in dealing with adversity is the reason he’s been able to stick around for so long.

“The incident in Seattle,” running back Alex Green said, referring to the loss to the Seahawks on a disputed Hail Mary. “He could have easily snapped, but he took it as a man and dealt with it. He made sure he was calm so we would follow his lead.”

The job of head coach involves so much more than just coaching. Administrative responsibilities fill McCarthy’s appointment book, which is scheduled to the fifth minute. And then, there are the daily talks with his team doctors and trainers.

“When you’re spending more than the norm of your day in areas that don’t have anything to do with winning the game, that to me, that’s a real indicator for me to get locked back in,” said McCarthy. “The most important part of the job is Sunday afternoon.”

So McCarthy keeps his cool three ways: He jumps on the elliptical machine for stress. He hears his firefighter and police officer father remind him to never forget where he came from. And he goes home to his wife and four children.

“To go to work and be in charge and then go home and find out that you’re not in charge of anything in a house full of kids and activity, that keeps you grounded,” said McCarthy, grinning.

McCarthy turned 49 in November. Not long after, he delivered another one of his classic quotes after the 38-10 loss at New York, that pity was a wasted emotion. And Green Bay has rebounded.

McCarthy breaks up the season in to four quarters, and in December — in his fourth quarter — the team is hot, having won seven of its last eight games.

As other coaches around the league may not feel very much job security right now, McCarthy shows no sign of burnout, disinterest or discontent. How long does he want to keep doing this, anyway?

“I have a general idea,” he said, but seemed reluctant to give any specific number. “I’d like to think I’m about … second quarter.

“I’m most proud of the program that (general manager) Ted Thompson and I built. Obviously we work for the best sports franchise in the world — and I don’t apologize for saying that, either — because they give you the resources and the platform to be successful. I really feel that when we bring a player in to our program, he does have the opportunity to reach his potential and be part of a successful football team each year.”

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